Reviewed by: Rab99bit Date: 06/06/2001 Summary: An Oriental Love Story Eversince Love Story made its debut, there has been countless imitating stories of love and sacrifice and of one partner finally kicking the bucket in the end. I wouldn't blame the cast for the poor box-office records : the cinema going crowd are tired of such cliched stories; and the slow pace of the story does little to excite them. For want of a better script and direction, I think the cast did their best. Alex Fong as Alex Lam, the out of job, outdated, down on his luck music composer, was his usual self, acting out his mood changes with a few turns of the head, rapid eye movements and facial grimaces. You either love or hate this actor totally : his facial expressions actually tell the story without need for words. Lookswise, he is the Richard Gere of the Orient, with a trim and lanky body to match. Yoyo Mung's acting unfortunately failed to deliver. I couldn't detect any feeling on her part for the composer until suddenly towards the end of the movie, when she is overcome by the "perfect composition". Verdict : not as bad as the HK crowd has indicated by the box office collections.

Reviewed by: tmuething Date: 03/04/2001 Summary: Cliched Story, Adequate Handling The plot is strictly a dime a dozen: A once successful songwriter, Alex (Alex Fong), now hard on his luck, falls in love with a cute waitress (YoYo Mung). He persuades her to take up singing and - surprise - she turns out to be the no.1 hit sensation. But Alex's songs are not wanted anymore. He goes to Taiwan to meet his old friend/music teacher, but he has passed away already. He stays with his late friend's young musician friends and composes a single song, which he sends to HK..... I won't give away the ending (Most of it is mentioned on the DVD cover anyway), but it is rather predictable if you know romantic dramas from HK (and I think you do). We've seen it all before. This coy and often clichéd story is made palatable by two natural lead performances by the well-matched Fong/Mung. It makes for pleasant but ever so slight entertainment, lacking the polish and depth of UFO or Milkyway productions (thinking of sth. like Sealed with a Kiss, also starring YoYo). It's director Law Wai Tak's debut, so perhaps it would be unreasonable to expect too much. Eternal Love scored a ridiculous HK$ 171,500 at the HK box office, and it certainly lacks in a strong selling point. Still, I've seen much worse, and I probably wouldn't avoid watching it again if hard-pressed. A rather lightweight 88 minutes, but still kind of nice - and certainly worthwile for Canto pop fans (part of the plot is, apparently, carried by the lyrics, which are - as so often - not available in English translation). On Universe DVD-5512; Lbx 1.85:1; Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; contains the original theatrical trailer plus one promo trailer, for "...Take 2: Love Correction," which seems to promise more. OK print, lack of color, a little overly bright. Thomas

Reviewed by: ileong20 Date: 12/28/2000 Summary: Another True Love? I thought this movie is just like a semi-bite off from the movie True Love with Elle Choi (AKA: Siu Suet) and Sam Lee Chan Sam. So the story was about a music producer Alex going through his down the hill career and got hooked up with Ivy a kindergarden teacher in day and a bar waitress by nite. And of course Ivy had a great talent of singing, and Alex is trying his best to get her an opportunity. Then she got famous and he's all alone so on and so on. I must say the story is quite boring and you can tell pretty much what's the whole story is going through. And of course by the end of the movie, it would only make sense if Alex died, which he did at the end. And of course before he passed away, he had written the "Best" song of his whole career and is now sang by Ivy. *sigh* Must director have to put audience to the same formula again? After not even a year? The performances in this movie was ok I guess. Alex Fong did what he had to do, being all sad, pathetic and trying to argue with other people about his music. The scene where he had to persuade the fact that he is a good song writer to other people was not helping at all. He just simply rised his voice and trying to convince the viewer that he was the best. Yo Yo Mung also did her part as a simply girl doing her best to support her grandmother. At least she was a bit convincing. The best performance again was done by Helena Law Lan. She once again proofed that she has the skill of acting. I guess what I'm trying to say is that this movie is not convincing enough. I don't quite believe the story about the struggle at all. All I see is scenes jumping back and forth which doesn't quite make sense to me.